[Seldonman]

Ok, I am back after a few weeks with yet another plea for help from my friends at Router Forum. You see, I have been busy these past few weeks and one of my projects is making a cross cut sled for my table saw. However, being Mr. Ridiculous and Mr. Perfection at the same time I have a dilemma. As you can see from the attached photo my sled is just under an 1/8th of an inch away from the blade. On the other side I will attach another short width of plywood that I can adjust for using a dado blade. This other piece will snug right up to the blade on the right side. Question, should I be concerned with the small gap on the left side? If so, how would you recommend that I fix it so that I am not chasing my tail? Do I put in an end mill of the appropriate size and use my router table to widen the miter slot on the left side. Or, would you recommend that I leave the miter slot as is and glue a piece of 1/2 inch baltic birch plywood to my existing piece and then just trim it to width with the table saw. Can I even glue the plywood with any chance of it staying attached for the long term?

Thanks as always for your advice.

Jim in Phoenix

 

[Mike]

Jim, I suggest moving your miter bar over 1/2" and then cutting your sled to exact length. This way you know the edge of the sled is where the cut will happen; this is useful for cutting odd shaped pieces.

 

[DaninVan]

Jim, are you asking how to get an exact zero clearance for the dado slot? Won't that constantly be changing for you as you change dado widths, or is it a dedicated sled for one specific size cut operation?

 

[OPG3]

Yeah, I can see where Mike and Dan are coming from. Unless my memory is rapidly failing (which is a definite possibility), I cannot remember ever hearing the 3- terms: Dado Blade, Zero Clearance and Table Saw Sled used in the same paragraph. It seems to me that by the end of day one, the sled would look like a Meth User's Front Teeth.

Otis Guillebeau from Auburn, Georgia

 

[MT Stringer]

To make the sled a zero clearance and dado acceptable...

:blink:

Check out my table saw sled modification thread here.

By the way, it is working great in every aspect.

 

[dutchman 46]

The Saw blade will always run along the blade as long as You use it for a dedicated sled for a standard blade. I think that this is where You have to decide what You will do with it. I would look at building a smaller sled with fence and clamps for cutting dados, and any cut where You use a dado blade. The first fence is ideal for cutting plywood for cabinet work where You need perfect 90 degree cuts. Just My thought . You do what ever You are happiest with. but keeping the blade up against the edge will be all but impossible with dado blades!

 

[Seldonman]

No, if I add ten blades (just exaggerating) or a dado blade the blade width will expand to the right. This sled has a second piece that is slotted so you can adjust width to expand the slot to the right. What I hear Mike from Detroit saying is that I should just cut another dado about a half inch in length to overlap the existing dado and then position my miter runner so that there is a little overlap and then cut in flush. I think that may work as the critical measurement then will be the fence being 90 degrees perpendicular to the blade. I am going to use William Ng's five cut method to hopefully get it accurate.

Jim

 

[MT Stringer]

Good luck Jim. It seems my right hand naturally rests on the fence directly behind the miter bar so it is easy to push the sled forward.
Mike

 

[OPG3]

Please allow me to now say: All 3- phrases are in the same paragraph and actually do make perfect sense to me. Good work! I love it when someone thinks outside of the normal confines of typical - you did a very smart thing!

Otis Guillebeau from Auburn, Georgia